Hello all!
I've been raising chickens for years but have only recently tried my hand at the incubator game. My first go 'round with the incubator was pretty easy. We set it, monitored the humidity, and left it alone until day 18 when we candled eggs, then removed the turners and had a pretty decent hatch.
I was so impressed with the hatch rate and ease of running the incubator I bought one slightly bigger and we now are running both. They are the same model (don't ask me what it is because it's a generic mass-manufacture Chinese model).
I fired both of them up last week, warmed them up, and started about 8 duck eggs in the 1st incubator. I let them run for a week, monitored the temperature and humidity gauges on the incubators themselves and they were steady, and added chicken eggs to both. Then I purchased two Zoo Med Digital Hygrometers and hooked them up...
Ho boy...
The first incubator is running about right; the temp and humidity on the machine are relatively close to what the hygrometer reads (within .2 for temp and 2% for humidity on average). I'm not too worried about it.
The second incubator is what I'm worried about. I added eggs 3 days ago. The first two days it had HARD temperature fluctuations.
The first day it ran at about 97.2 degrees on average.
The second day I was able to get the temp above 98.6 degrees with the help of a heat light and towel. At one point, however, the temp reached almost 101. I adjusted the heat light and got it back down around 99. It was only at 101 for a short time, and I'm not too worried about the spike in temp as the thermometer was closer to the warm towel / heat lamp than the eggs so it was probably picking up the heat before any damage was done.
Today the heat is back down between 98.6 and 99.4. I've been playing with the placement of the heat lamp to make sure that it isn't over heating the incubator and I'm trying to make the incubator do the majority of the work. The temp and humidity between the Zoo Med hygrometer and the incubator do not match. Temp is off by almost 1 degree (both are within safe incubating levels) and humidity is off by 3 to 5%, ranging from 41 to 44 % on average. I'm currently in the process of raising the humidity slowly to the mid to high 40's for the day.
I'm trusting my Zoo Med hygrometer's over the incubator (though admittedly I should have calibrated them first; you live you learn...), but I'm a little worried about the constant shift in temperature.
(I've also got a bulb thermometer in incubator 2 to verify the Zoo Med hygrometer and they're pretty close.)
Does anyone have any experience with these sort of temperature fluctuations? And has anyone ever had a successful hatch after such a low starting temperature (97.2 degrees)?
In your experience, what are acceptable temperature parameters?
I've been raising chickens for years but have only recently tried my hand at the incubator game. My first go 'round with the incubator was pretty easy. We set it, monitored the humidity, and left it alone until day 18 when we candled eggs, then removed the turners and had a pretty decent hatch.
I was so impressed with the hatch rate and ease of running the incubator I bought one slightly bigger and we now are running both. They are the same model (don't ask me what it is because it's a generic mass-manufacture Chinese model).
I fired both of them up last week, warmed them up, and started about 8 duck eggs in the 1st incubator. I let them run for a week, monitored the temperature and humidity gauges on the incubators themselves and they were steady, and added chicken eggs to both. Then I purchased two Zoo Med Digital Hygrometers and hooked them up...
Ho boy...
The first incubator is running about right; the temp and humidity on the machine are relatively close to what the hygrometer reads (within .2 for temp and 2% for humidity on average). I'm not too worried about it.
The second incubator is what I'm worried about. I added eggs 3 days ago. The first two days it had HARD temperature fluctuations.
The first day it ran at about 97.2 degrees on average.
The second day I was able to get the temp above 98.6 degrees with the help of a heat light and towel. At one point, however, the temp reached almost 101. I adjusted the heat light and got it back down around 99. It was only at 101 for a short time, and I'm not too worried about the spike in temp as the thermometer was closer to the warm towel / heat lamp than the eggs so it was probably picking up the heat before any damage was done.
Today the heat is back down between 98.6 and 99.4. I've been playing with the placement of the heat lamp to make sure that it isn't over heating the incubator and I'm trying to make the incubator do the majority of the work. The temp and humidity between the Zoo Med hygrometer and the incubator do not match. Temp is off by almost 1 degree (both are within safe incubating levels) and humidity is off by 3 to 5%, ranging from 41 to 44 % on average. I'm currently in the process of raising the humidity slowly to the mid to high 40's for the day.
I'm trusting my Zoo Med hygrometer's over the incubator (though admittedly I should have calibrated them first; you live you learn...), but I'm a little worried about the constant shift in temperature.
(I've also got a bulb thermometer in incubator 2 to verify the Zoo Med hygrometer and they're pretty close.)
Does anyone have any experience with these sort of temperature fluctuations? And has anyone ever had a successful hatch after such a low starting temperature (97.2 degrees)?
In your experience, what are acceptable temperature parameters?
